I'll be Home for Christmas and in a Mental Hospital by New Years

Welcome to my messed up holiday season. Seriously. There has never been a Christmas that I can recall where everything has gone so terribly wrong.

It started out like every other year. Right after Halloween, I started buying gifts and making preparations. Then, suddenly, I was caught up in a tornado of orchestra concerts, choir concerts, classroom parties, my son's birthday party, etc., and found myself with two weeks until Christmas. Even then, I couldn't get my act together enough to completely decorate the house.

I knitted a lot of presents this year which was wonderful but very time consuming. I let the kids decorate the tree and my ornament box got completely messed up. There are very few things in life that I am completely obsessive about, and my ornament boxes are those very few things. Several ornaments went missing, and so did the rest of my holiday and my sanity.

In the middle of this winter of my discontent, I am mindful of the real reason for the season. I hold my loved ones close. I cherish the Christmas cards from my friends and family. I understand that it is not how many times we fall down in life, but how many times we get back up. Life goes on.

Perhaps the reason I go through periods like this is to make me appreciate the wonderful life I lead. And while I'll soon put away the Christmas gifts and decorations and regret that I didn't have my picture perfect holiday this year, I know that (God willing) I'll have another chance at it next year. Life goes on.

Until then, there will be so many things to look forward to: birthday celebrations, the other yearly holidays, a summer filled with baseball and softball, planting flowers, kids moving on to the next grade in school, football season, and all the ups and downs on that rollercoaster ride that is my life.

But in my basement, there will be boxes of ornaments just waiting . . .

Merry Christmas everyone.

Happiness Is a Red Tupperware Container

I'm still tidying up after the whirlwind holiday. As usual, I had a laundry list of things I wanted to do before Christmas and, as usual, I fell short. The woman who started Christmas shopping in September didn't quite get it all done. Again. I guess you could say that not getting everything done is now a tradition for me.

We celebrated all of the family traditions that are important to us: We cut down our own Christmas tree at a beautiful farm near Somerset, Wisconsin. The farm has a big beautiful barn and a straw mountain for the kids to climb with ropes. There are also wooden tunnels and hot cider and fresh donuts. It is one of my favorite days of the year.

We went to see Santa again. I know my kids love it, but sometimes I believe that my husband and I enjoy it the most. We had smiles on our faces the entire time. My son wore a suitcoat, and he had his list for Santa folded in the inside pocket. Santa actually laughed when the son pulled the list out of his pocket. He looked like a little James Bond.

My daughter was the Angel in the Christmas pageant at our church. She was a narrator last year. She did a wonderful job with her lines, and she looked beautiful with her tinsel halo. My son spent most of his time on the stage pulling at his tie and looking uncomfortable in his white shirt and blue dress slacks.

I helped with my son's first grade Christmas party. One of the Dads is a musician, so he had the kids doing a musical game with Christmas songs. Another Mom helped the kids make mouse ornaments/candy cane holders out of construction paper and glitter paint. Yet another Mom had a bean bag toss game. And I coordinated the whole event so I took the easy way out and made trail mix for a snack (no baking required), served a beverage, prepared candy bags for the kids to take home, and I helped out the other parents. The kids had a good time and weren't too hyper.

Early on the morning of the Christmas party, my daughter and I mixed up the trail mix for the first graders. I needed a fair amount for 22 kids, so we mixed up a big batch with Cheerios, raisins, peanuts, pretzels and M&Ms. I looked for a container large enough to transport all of it to school. And in the back of my cupboard I found a large red Tupperware container that I inherited from my Mom. It is huge with a sweet little kitschy Pennsylvania Dutch-type design on the front of it. Perfect.

When I was younger, my Mom used this container to store her wonderful spritz cookies at Christmastime. No one can make spritz cookies like my Mom. In later years, she even had a recipe where she used Jello in the cookies to give them color, and it added flavor and made them even more moist and wonderful - though she doesn't remember doing this. I have my Mom's old cookie press though I'd never try making a spritz cookie. Can you imagine how many ways I could mess those up? I tried making my Mom's Mexican wedding cookies this year and messed them up so badly that my kids begged me not to leave them out for Santa because "they are really bad." Evidently, you aren't supposed to use light butter in the recipe. Who knew?

I kept the red Tupperware container on my kitchen counter all through the Christmas holiday. Just looking at it made me smile. It brought back a happy memory of a simpler time. When I was little, Christmas was a wonderful season. We would make gifts and drive around town to see the Christmas lights. At school, the choir would practice Christmas carols for our annual performance. We would practice an hour each day - usually in place of math class which I believe is why, to this day, I suck at math. Our school would have Mass in the cafeteria before school let out for the holiday. We would honor our parent volunteers with little gifts during the Mass, and we always brought canned and boxed items for a food drive collection. We would have a Secret Santa gift exchange in our classroom, and we would always give a gift to the teacher. Some years I would have to sing in the choir at Midnight Mass, and my parents would always let me open a small gift after Mass before going to bed. We celebrated St. Nick's night on December 6th with small gifts. And my Mom was the queen of Christmas baking. To this day, the smell of rum brings back memories of her Canadian rum cake.

And every time I would see that wonderful old red Tupperware canister on my kitchen counter, all of the good memories came back to me. The warm wonderful happy times of my childhood in a drafty old farm house on an acre of land just on the outskirts of a little town in central Wisconsin. I cherish these memories so much. They are always in the back of my mind as I celebrate my new holiday traditions with my own family. They still envelop me like a warm hug from the past. They still live on in my memory.

This was a strange Christmas for me this year. Normally, I would trim the tree while the kids are in school. Unwrapping each individually wrapped ornament gently and placing it on the tree. Thinking back to when and where I got the ornament. Some were from old friends that I'm no longer in touch with, which always makes me sad. Some are from the Christmas trees of my childhood, beautiful antique glass ornaments. Some are handmade loveliness from my children when they were in preschool full of glue and glitter, each containing their name and the year it was made. I even have a beautiful pewter ornament of a cat with my darling Josie's name on it. I always hang it on the bottom of the tree - a place she used to lay and enjoy the lights on the tree. It usually takes a couple of hours to decorate the tree. And this year, I didn't feel up to trimming the tree at all. So, I let my daughter do it. And she did a wonderful job. She even decorated the house with nutcrackers and a nativity scene, snowglobes and a Christmas village. She was so proud, and so am I.

So, the holiday was a bit incomplete for me. I never got to watch all of my favorite holiday specials and movies. I didn't do a lot of Christmas knitting. I lost my Christmas card list, and I didn't get cards out to everyone. It's as though the holiday just passed me by. And now it's almost time to pack everything away. No more holiday music. The stores are bare. The snow and cold seem colder somehow. Time to move on.

And here I am staring at 2010 with my usual feeling of dread in the face of a new situation. I've got that feeling of being on the edge of a precipice afraid to move. I normally don't believe in resolutions. Yet, I have the funny habit of writing a note to myself each year when I pack the Christmas ornaments away. I always remind myself whether the lights worked well that year, or if I bought new lights and where they are located. I leave reminders for myself to do certain things, to give myself more time to accomplish certain tasks. It's hope in a note. And I always like reading the notes from myself the following holiday season. A gentle nudge from the past to get my act together. The constant striving for perfection.

This year, I've decided to write notes to myself to open every three months. Notes that will force me to take stock of things as the year goes along. Ways to measure whether I'm making progress on my goals. Nudges to help me get my act together and take it on the road. A reminder that I am a work in progress.

Yes, next year is the year that I will actually write a Christmas newsletter. I will get it all done. I will even bake spritz cookies, dammit. 2010 is going to be my year. I can feel it.

Merry Christmas!

Instant Human . . . Just Add Coffee

Two more days of concerts, dances and parties to go.  The husband and I are splitting parent duty tonight - he will attend our son's kindergarten concert and take photos while I go and videotape our daughter's Christmas dance at the dance studio.  I will videotape the afternoon performance of the kindergarten concert, so we will both get to see it.  

Tomorrow are the classroom parties.  I will be helping 22 kindergarteners make snowflake ornaments out of pipe cleaners and beads and ribbon.  What is left of me after that will go to the third grade winter carnival and take photos.  

This was supposed to be the year that I got it all done.  You will remember me bragging that I had my shopping all done in mid November with one sewing project, one knitting project and Christmas cards to be done.  The cards got out early this week.  Half of the knitting project is complete, and I scrapped the sewing project.  The house isn't even fully decorated, but we may just have to go with what we have.  My husband kept coming up with different gift ideas and other things to buy for relatives right up until yesterday.  I am going out this morning to buy the final two gifts, and then I am done.  

The Secret Santa school gift exchange gifts were bought and wrapped last night along with the teacher gifts, and I delivered them to school this morning.  

This final week is for finishing the wrapping and baking and going to see Santa.  

Need . . . coffee . . . quickly . . . 

My Wish This Holiday Season

I would like everyone to please reach out to their fellow man and give something to charity whether it be a monetary donation, a food donation, or volunteering your time.  No donation is too small.  Remember the power of one.  The little baby you help may grow up to discover the cure for AIDS.  The homeless man may save your life one day.  They are someone's mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle . . . Give them some love.  

Thanks!  

The Way Things Are

"Little children, let us love, neither in word nor with the tongue, but in deed and truth."  1 John 3:18

I volunteer in my son's kindergarten classroom on Thursday afternoons.  Last week, their teacher made each student an ornament with their name on it and hung it on the classroom Christmas tree.  She told them they could take them home before Christmas and put them on their own trees at home.  One little boy told her, "You can keep my ornament here on this tree.  We won't have one at home.  We can't 'ford it."  The little boy is being raised by a single mother, and he has three siblings.  This broke the teacher's heart, and she went out and bought the family one of those pretty tabletop LED lighted trees.  All of the students were very supportive and were happy that the boy was getting a Christmas tree from the teacher.  

I just found out today that one little girl in the kindergarten class lives in a homeless shelter with her mother.  The mother has no car, and the girl can't take the bus since they move from shelter to shelter.  So, the mother sends the girl to school in a cab when she can't find someone to drive her to school.  

There are many children in the same types of situations in our school.  The teachers and staff at the school recently donated new and used coats for needy families.  And they also opened a small "store" for these children to go "shopping" for gifts for their families.  I love our school.  

You all know from a previous post that there is a little boy in my daughter's class who had been physically abused by his father who is now in jail.  There is also a little girl in that class whose father is serving in Iraq and will not be home for Christmas this year.  He wasn't home for Christmas last year either.  The little girl told the class that she is very fearful because her father's best friend was killed over there.  

I am so grateful that my children are being exposed to people from all backgrounds and walks of life and that they have such wonderful role models in their teachers.  I believe it will help them grow up to have empathy, tolerance and respect for all people.  And it kind of puts things in perspective - especially at this time of year.    

"I feel you Christmas.  I know I've found you.  You never fade away.  The joy of Christmas stays here inside us.  Fills each and every heart with love."  Lyrics from "Where are you Christmas?" by Faith Hill  

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I have one Christmas gift to knit, one to sew, and then I am done with my Christmas planning and shopping.  I just have to get a Christmas card made, buy some Christmas stamps, wrap a couple of gifts, bake some cookies and do the decorating.  

Jealous????

Nanner, nanner!